1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to providing a web service and more particularly relates to providing a gateway configured to allow SOAP clients to access web services provided by an Information Management System (IMS) software product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditional computer applications provide computing services through an application interface. As an example, a word processor application allows a user to develop a text document using a computer. The word processor runs on a single computer and presents an interface to the user, normally on the same computer on which the word processor is running. A user sees a graphical representation of a document and edits the document using an interface provided by the word processor.
With the advent of the Internet, users often access information through web pages. A web server computer serves a web page, written using hypertext markup language (HTML) to client computers. A user of a client computer uses a web browser to access a web page on a web server computer using hypertext transport protocol (HTTP). A web browser typically establishes an HTTP session over a TCP/IP connection from the web browser computer to the web server computer. The world wide web (WWW) comprises a combination of web server computers and web service client computers connected using internet protocol (IP) which comprises transmission control protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP).
Companies today provide services on the world wide web to their customers and others. Such services include transactional banking services, retail sales transactions, and information access services. Although companies could provide these services through HTML pages to users of web browsers, companies are beginning to provide automated services over the web using web services.
A web service is a specialized transactional service provided by a web service provider to a web service client. The web service client communicates with the web service provider using simple object access protocol (SOAP). SOAP is an XML-based messaging protocol that utilizes HTTP as a transport. As an example, a client application may initiate a request for the latest temperature reading at the John Wayne Airport. The client contacts a web service provider which maintains temperature recordings for the John Wayne Airport. The client initiates the request by sending a web service request in a SOAP message and receives a web service response in a SOAP message. The client retrieves the temperature value from the response. In this manner, web service clients are able to access vast amounts of data from databases and other sources using web services.
However, web service clients cannot currently access many of the largest transactional systems housing some of the largest databases of information and time proven transactional functionality. Legacy systems such as the International Business Machines (IBM) Information Management System (IMS) are not accessible as native web services. Some of the world's largest banks and institutions use IMS to maintain their financial databases. In an effort to meet this need, some companies, including IBM, are building web-server based access systems. Many of these systems utilize J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition) to translate HTTP (Hyper Text Transport Protocol) calls into XML-based queries. As an example, IBM produces the Websphere web server product. The Websphere product presents a web page interface to web browsers. The Websphere product utilizes J2EE to translate web browser requests into XML requests to an IMS hierarchical database. However, in many implementations, the J2EE platform creates exorbitant overhead due to its large, bulky, and slow design. The inefficiencies of the J2EE platform increase the expense of a web server-based J2EE solution.
Unfortunately, currently available products do not enable clients to communicate with IMS using native XML. Although the owners and operators of IMS systems would like to provide a secure, efficient method to natively access IMS systems using XML, no such system exists today. In providing such an access method, owners of IMS systems must maintain strict security regulations imposed by government laws and business requirements.
From the foregoing discussion, it should be apparent that a need exists for an apparatus, system, and method to access legacy IMS systems using SOAP enabled web service clients. Beneficially, such an apparatus, system, and method would provide a highly efficient and secure method for web service clients to natively access transactional IMS databases using XML.